In Dreams
by renrenren3
Summary: In his dreams, everything is different. In his dreams, she's still fifteen years old.


**Author's Note:** Re-posting all my old ASOIAF fic from my other account. This is embarrassingly old, it was written in 2008. For an exchange, I think. 

Jaime watched the flames dancing in the fireplace and thought of his sister. If he let his mind wander he could almost see Cersei dancing among the flames, like her letter had. Soon, in King's Landing, the real Cersei might burn in the flames too.

He wouldn't save her. He could no longer save her. It was too late for that. There had been times, many years ago, when his actions could have made a difference. Not now. Weary, he closed his eyes and pressed his hand over his face.

He remembered the disgust on her face, the look of contempt in her eyes when she had seen his stump for the first time. He remembered the last time he'd fucked her in the sept, next to the body of their dead son. If he'd acted differently back then, would anything have changed at all? If he'd begged her, thrown himself on his knees in front of her, asking for forgiveness? Truly, would it have changed anything? Behind the queen's mask, he hadn't been to recognize his sweet sister any longer.

She's been fucking Lancel and Osmund Kettleblack, and Moon Boy for all I know...

"I loved you," he whispered to the flames. "I would have died for you. Maybe it would have been better if I died at the Bloody Mummers' hands rather than let it come to this."

When? he asked himself. What had happened, when did he cross that line? When did his beautiful sister, his twin, his half, turn into this?

That night he dreamed of Cersei. He was no longer in Riverrun but in Casterly Rock, and the room was the same one he had occupied as a child. He didn't see her arrive, but suddenly she was there with him, leaning against the balcony. She was facing away from him, and moonlight reflected on her hair and her bare shoulders, apparently lost in her thoughts. He hesitated, unsure if he ought to call her or go back, but she turned and saw him.

"Sweet brother," she called, and Jaime saw that this wasn't the queen. This was his sister, this was how she looked like when they both were no more than fifteen. How many times had she visited him in this same room, how many times they'd kissed in the moonlight?

"You can't sleep? Is something bothering you?" Cersei asked, holding out her hand. Jaime hesitated still, but then she smiled at him. His legs moved of their own accord, and Jaime stepped forward and took his sister's hand into his own hands - both of them - and squeezed it tightly.

There were so many things that he wanted to tell her, so many questions to ask, but he couldn't find his voice. She smiled again, as if they were sharing a private joke, and leaning forward she kissed him on the mouth, pressing herself to him. The whole world disappeared for Jaime. For the longest time there were only the two of them, alone in the darkness, and when she broke the kiss her lips were everything that he remembered. For a while they stood huddled together in the cool night air.

"Why did you leave me?" he asked at last, his voice barely a whisper.

"I never did," she said. "And I will never leave you, because we are one."

She pushed him back on the bed and kissed him again, more hungrily. Jaime felt himself stir as he hadn't in years. He trailed one hand down her spine, feeling the warmth of her body beneath her light silken shift.

"It's been too long!," Cersei whispered, as if echoing his thoughts. She reached for the hem of her night gown and pulled it over her head. Beneath, she was naked.

"Hurry," Cersei said, her voice hoarse and broken. "I want to feel you inside me... That's the only time... I feel whole..."

Jaime froze. Suddenly he felt cold, and not only because of the wind. He cupped her cheek into his sword hand. He could see his own reflection staring back from her green eyes. It was not his hand, and it was not his own reflection. It was a younger self, someone he didn't recognize any more.

"I can't," Jaime whispered. "I can't be whole ever again."

"If we're together..." Cersei began, but he shook his head.

"I'm not the same I used to be," he said quietly. "And neither are you. I changed too much, we both changed so much."

Something sparkled in Cersei's eyes, a hint of her old possessiveness.  
"Is there someone else?" she asked hotly.

Jaime hesitated for a second, then shook his head. "I've never been with any other woman," he said truthfully. "In a way, I've been truer than you."

Cersei's lips trembled. "Then if this is about Osmund, believe me, there was nothing else I could do," she said. "I had to protect Joffrey... Without you, I didn't know what to do..."

Jaime put one finger to her lips. "It's not that. I didn't realize for the longest time, but I had already lost you, many years ago. I might always regret it, but I can't go back to the past. I can't go back to you."

"Jaime," she said. It was the first time she had called his name, and it broke him to see her looking so pained, but he couldn't stay.  
"I love you, Jaime."

They had to pay the price for what they'd done, and Cersei's price might be her life. As for him, he was paying already, and dearly. He rose from the bed and started lacing himself up. Cersei tried to pull him back, but he gently brushed her hand away. He could hear sobs as he walked away, but he wasn't sure if it was him crying, or Cersei.

"I love you. I love you. I love you."

When he woke on the following morning he was once again old, alone and broken. And his pillow was wet with tears.


End file.
